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Black editorial cartoonists: And now there are none ...

At least there are none, so far as anyone knows, working for daily newspapers.

The only one, Ron Rogers of the South Bend Tribune, worked his last day this week, reports Richard Prince of the Maynard Institute. He was a layoff casualty at the paper.

I know Ron personally, and I was his boss years ago (sort of) when I was editor of the Winston-Salem Chronicle. He drew free-lance cartoons for that paper

I also went to school with his wife, Donna Whitaker Rogers, who remains an editor for the Tribune.

I last saw Ron in Chicago on a panel about editorial cartoonists.

The truth is, political cartoonists are a waning breed.

There are not as many or as many good ones as there once were in the days of the late Doug Marlette, a Greensboro native, and Jeff MacNelly.

There is, well, an art to it beyond simply drawing caricatures and being funny. The very best can make you chuckle and think.

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Posted by Allen Johnson on Saturday, September 4, 2010 at 5:46 pm

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Gymnaseum

September 5, 2010 - 8:28 pm EDT

Washington politics and we, the American public, have become living caricatures; holding the mirror gets harder every day for the artist, because the ugly truth no longer stings, it is worn as a badge.

brian444

September 6, 2010 - 5:31 am EDT

Have to disagree: if any thinking was ever facilitated by political cartoons, it has escaped my notice. As with werewolves, the waning of the breed of political cartoonists should be welcomed with open arms.

Doug Johnson

September 6, 2010 - 5:40 am EDT

Brian, is correct!
My wife's daily paper, has a daily, assault with a anti republican, and tea party cartoons ever day.
They are about as funny as a three putt green.
Get ready for more assault on the tea party, brother George Soros, has spoken.
The libearl media, will support, any wonder they are losing business.
Watch for the letters, you see the same one's in a dozen papers.